Yes, Kathy and I did get to Woodstock (the 1969 concert site, not the town) but we also packed more into this trip than any other ten day road trip we’ve taken. Kathy and I both did extensive pre-trip research and we came up with a list of places to see and things to do that was impossible to accomplish (but we came close). The main focus of the trip ended up being architecture but we also enjoyed driving around the beautiful countryside, farmland, and two Great Lakes.
We had to get up at 3:00 a.m. to catch our 6:00 a.m. flight to Buffalo, New York with a stop in Phoenix, Arizona. We picked up our rental car and immediately drove the approximately 25 miles (40 km) to Niagara Falls. I had seen the falls about 30 years ago and since we planned to drive all the way to Toronto, Canada that evening, Kathy was OK with just getting a good overall view of the falls. I had walked all around the falls on the American side but I remember the best view was from the Skylon Tower on the Canadian side.
We drove over the Rainbow Bridge, presented our passports and answered a few questions at the Canadian Customs Plaza and headed straight to the tower. Since it was still the off season there, we were just about the only people on the tower observation deck and got a great view of the American, Bridal Veil and Horseshoe Falls. Even though both the American and Canadian cities called Niagara Falls are very touristy with many hotels and casinos, the falls are still worth a visit. There is a lot of park area around the falls including Niagara Falls State Park designed by the famous landscape architect, Fredrick Law Olmsted.
After dinner in Niagara Falls, we drove another 80 miles (129 km) to our hotel in Toronto, Ontario. We arrived there around 8:30 p.m. just in time to see the Toronto Maple Leafs lose game seven of the Stanley Cup playoffs to the Boston Bruins. We are not hockey fans but I could sense the whole city really took the loss hard. It was a long but fun first day for sure.
Our full day in Toronto included a great audio tour of the Casa Loma Castle, the old Distillery District and another great view from the observation deck of the CN Tower, at 1,815' (553 m), for many years, the tallest free standing structure in the world.
We had planned to see the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto but since we decided to see the Casa Loma Castle, we would have had to rush through the Hall of Fame. Hockey is one sport we really don’t pay much attention to, usually only watching it every four years during the Winter Olympics, so we skipped the Hockey Hall of Fame.
After dinner we saw our San Francisco Giants play the Toronto Blue Jays in the Rogers Centre. The Rogers Centre has a retractable roof and since it was cool and drizzly out, the roof was closed. Another feature of the Rogers Centre is the Fairmont Hotel with room windows on several levels above the outfield fence. The rooms go for $400/night and over the years, there have been a few incidents of “exhibitionism” during games. So now, when you check in, you have to sign an agreement that you will “behave” while the curtains are open.
As always, we wore our Giants shirts and hats and brought our signs. We actually saw several other Giants fans there but even with our support, the Blue Jays won 10-6. After we see the Giants play in San Diego next month, we will have seen games in 10 of the 30 current major league ball parks (and a few former ball parks). We just may have to set another goal of seeing games in all 30 ball parks now.
From Toronto, we drove back to Buffalo to spend a full day there. This is where the trip really became an architectural extravaganza. We saw no less than seven structures designed by Frank Lloyd Wright: Fontana Boathouse, Darwin Martin House Complex (including the George Barton House), Graycliff Estate, Blue Sky Mausoleum and two private residences.
The Fontana Boathouse located on the shores of the Niagara River was designed by Wright in 1905 for the University of Wisconsin as a working boathouse, but never built until 2007. Today it is used to store boats for the West Side Rowing Club.
The Darwin Martin House Complex is one of Wright’s major private residences. It was completed in 1905 but over the decades, the complex suffered considerable damage and three of the original five buildings were demolished. The Martin House Restoration Corporation has overseen the complete restoration of the existing structures and the rebuilding of the missing structures. We took an excellent two hour tour of this complex.
This complex still looks modern today and like most of the houses Wright designed, it is located in an upscale neighborhood surrounded by more traditional houses (Queen Ann, Victorian, Italianate, etc.). It would be interesting to know what the neighbors thought as these futuristic houses appeared in their neighborhood. Imagine a house that looks like the houses in “The Jetsons” cartoon in your neighborhood today…it would really stick out and would still look modern well into the future!
Kathy and I are still baffled by the Blue Sky Mausoleum located in the Forrest Lawn Cemetery. Apparently, between 1925 and 1928 Darwin Martin discussed with Wright a mausoleum to bring his family together for all eternity at Forest Lawn Cemetery. Martin died in 1935 but the mausoleum was not built until 2004. Forest Lawn Cemetery faithfully rendered Blue Sky, in conjunction with an architect trained by Wright himself, based on extensive research into Wright's drawings, notes, and correspondence. So I guess it is really more of a monument than a mausoleum since no one is interred in it.
We also saw three Art Deco buildings in Buffalo: Buffalo Fire Department Headquarters, Buffalo Design Collaborative Building and the Buffalo City Hall. We went up to the Observation Deck on the 28th floor of the City Hall for a great view of Buffalo.
We usually try to see at least a few National Park Sites on our trips and we were able to get a personal tour of the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site. This is the house owned by prominent Buffalo lawyer Ansley Wilcox where Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as President. So why was he sworn in in a private residence in Buffalo instead of in front of the Capitol in Washington DC? The reason is President McKinley was shot by an assassin on September 6, 1901 while attending a public reception at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo. He died from infection a week later and on September 14, 1901, Roosevelt took the oath of office in the Wilcox House library.
Finally, we saw one more building in Buffalo – The Ellicott Square Building completed in 1896. At the time, it was the largest office building in the world by area and the ornate interior court is pretty spectacular. The mosaic on the floor is made of 23 million pieces of marble imported from Italy and depicts sun symbols from civilizations around the world.
From Buffalo we headed to the shore of Lake Ontario stopping at the town of Lockport to see the Erie Canal along with several locks (hence the name of the town). The Erie Canal was an engineering marvel when completed in 1825. It connected Lake Erie near Buffalo with the Hudson River near Albany, New York completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. I’ve always wanted to see the Erie Canal since I read about it in grade school so we planned several stops along the way to see it and its locks.
From Lockport, we headed east along the south shore of Lake Ontario stopping to see five lighthouses along the way. The weather was perfect and the scenery was beautiful. We passed several farms and many of the trees were blooming about a month after the trees back home in Sacramento had bloomed. We had a guided tour of the 30 Mile Point Lighthouse and a picnic lunch at the Oak Orchard Lighthouse.
We arrived in Rochester around 3:00 P.M. and walked around the center of the city seeing a very unusual Art Deco building called the Times Square Building. The interior had very nice elevator doors, mailboxes, etc. typical of Art Deco buildings but what makes this building stand out are the four aluminum wings, each 42’ (13m) high, known as the "Wings of Progress" that sit atop the building.
We also walked over a car and pedestrian bridge which at one time was actually an aqueduct that diverted the Erie Canal over the Genesee River. I’ve seen old post cards depicting this aqueduct and also the nearby library building which still has water pouring out of the millrace that it is built on top off – most unusual.
Our next stop in Rochester was the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. I have recently added many vintage cameras to my collection and was looking forward to seeing the cameras in this museum. It houses one of the largest collections of photographic and cinematic equipment in the world - over 20,000 artifacts. Like many museums, they only had a fraction of the collection on display. I really enjoyed the exhibit seeing several examples of cameras in my camera collection, as well as ones I’d like to own. We toured Eastman’s house and gardens and learned about one of the richest men in the U.S. at the time. While George Eastman didn’t invent photography, he definitely made it popular and affordable for the masses. He was also a great philanthropist donating $100 million to various organizations and schools during his lifetime.
We found one more Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house in Rochester. Even though I had its address in my GPS, we have gotten good at picking out Wright’s distinct Usonian, Prairie style or Textile-block houses.
After hiking along the Erie Canal and seeing two more locks, we spent the night near Rochester and the next day headed to Syracuse, New York where we saw another unique Art Deco building – the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation Building. The figurative winged sculpture "Spirit of Light" personifying electric lighting looking down over the main entrance reminded me of the silent film classic “Metropolis”.
We asked the guard if we could take photos inside the lobby but she said we couldn’t (since it’s a power company headquarters, I’m sure the no-photo policy is for security reasons). After asking the guard for any information on the building, she produced a pamphlet and proceeded to read aloud most of it to us. I think she was either bored or lonely. The building is bathed in multi-colored lights at night but unfortunately, we wouldn’t be there to see that.
We also walked around downtown Syracuse and saw that the Erie Canal had one time gone through what is now Clinton Square. There are some great looking buildings around the square including several built in the 1800’s.
From Syracuse, we drove to Rome, New York to see Fort Stanwix National Monument. Fort Stanwix was built by the British in 1758 during the French and Indian War. The fort ended French invasions and provided a staging ground for the British. In 1776, the Continental Congress ordered General George Washington to have Fort Stanwix rebuilt to protect the emerging nation’s northwest border and secure a foothold for future westward expansion. During the Revolutionary War, the fort was under siege by the British and their allies until Continentals under Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold arrived to reinforce the fort’s garrison. After the American Revolution, Fort Stanwix continued to be used for American Indian relations, treaties, land deals, etc. Today, the reconstructed fort provides an opportunity to see history first hand. Besides all the buildings in the fort, we saw school children there being taught close order drills and a musket firing demonstration.
We made a quick stop in Utica, New York to see the Union Station there. This Beaux-Arts style train station was completed in 1914 and underwent a massive renovation and restoration in 1978. The Adirondack Scenic Railroad runs excursion trains from this station.
That day, we ended up in Cooperstown, New York and still had about three hours to see the National Baseball Hall of Fame. We weren’t disappointed with the exhibits there and I especially enjoyed the very old memorabilia. They had an exhibit showcasing the 2012 World Champion San Francisco Giants and had their 2010 (but not 2012) World Series ring on display. Afterward, we ate dinner at the Doubleday Café on the main street where many of the buildings date to the Colonial period and then drove to our hotel on the outskirts of Cooperstown.
The next day, we drove through some beautiful landscape including a small part of the Catskill Mountains. I’m always interested in how places got their names so I tried to find how the Catskill Mountains and the town of Catskill were named. It turns out while there are many theories, nobody really knows for sure. “Kill” means creek in Dutch and the Dutch settled in this area so that should have something to do with the name.
The Catskills are known as the setting for many 19th-century Hudson River School paintings and as the favored destination for urban vacationers from New York City in the mid-20th century. My father remembers going there as a kid when he lived in New York City. There are many resorts in the region where stand-up comedians perform. Also, many artists, musicians, and writers live in the Catskills in towns such as Woodstock and Phoenicia.
Speaking of Woodstock, our next destination was the Bethel Woods Center for the Performing Arts near the town of Bethel, New York. The Center is located on the farmland formerly owned by Max Yasgur where the famous Woodstock Music and Art Fair took place in August, 1969. The Center includes two theaters (Joan Baez was performing there a few days later), the Woodstock Museum and the site of the 1969 concert. I was 14 when Woodstock happened, saw the movie when it came out and still have the vinyl triple and double concert albums. I also have the deluxe Blu-ray concert movie set.
After seeing the museum, we walked down the hill toward the area where the stage was. We met a man who looked like a former hippie who was sitting at a table not far from the stage site. He had a large aerial photo of the concert site and showed us the spot we were at on the photo. He spoke like he was there at the concert but we could never really tell if he was joking or serious. We decided to have our picnic lunch there overlooking the site. It really is a beautiful area. The concert was originally supposed to be held in the town of Wallkill but the residents there voted to bar it so it ended up on Yasgur’s 600 acre dairy farm.
The hillside was a perfect place to hold the more than 400,000 people who showed up and the nearby woods was great for camping. We could also see the lake in the distance where people went swimming during the concert. After lunch, I walked out to the middle of the hill and projected myself back to the early morning of August 18, 1969 when Jimi Hendrix was playing after most people had gone home. So now I can say “I was there” even if I was 44 years too late.
There have been several Woodstock anniversary concerts since the original but only two came close to attracting the crowds of the original. One was held 10 miles from the town of Woodstock in 1994 and was pretty mellow but the other which was held on the site of the former Griffiss Air Force Base near Rome, New York was marred by violence, rape, and fires, bringing the festival to an abrupt end. I guess they ran out of pot and it just showed that there will never be another concert like the original Woodstock with its three days of peace and music.
From hippies and non-conformists, we switched gears and ended up in Hyde Park, New York, home of the rich and famous. Our first stop was the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site. We took a tour of Roosevelt’s home called Springwood and the Park Ranger told some great stories. One was when the King of England visited and saw a collection of anti-British cartoons on the wall that FDR had forgot to have removed, the King reportedly replied: “I see you have some in your collection that I don’t have”.
The FDR Library and Museum is the first Presidential Library and was actually started by FDR before he died in office. It is located right next to Springwood but we did not have time to see it. We did see Franklin and Eleanor’s graves in the rose garden. FDR’s beloved dogs are buried next to him.
From FDR’s home, we drove to the Vanderbilt Mansion just down the road in Hyde Park. This 50-room opulent mansion is also a National Historic Site and was built by Frederick Vanderbilt, grandson of Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt in 1899. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to see the nearby Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site. It includes her home called Valkill. Catskill, Wallkill, Valkill – lots of creeks in New York.
Last and certainly least, we stopped by the Hyde Park Train Station. It’s a tiny station situated right next to the Hudson River. FDR used this station many times when traveling to and from his beloved Springwood.
After much time spent in New York, we moved on to Hartford, Connecticut and took the tour of Mark Twain’s house. While this house was not his last house, it was his favorite house. He lived there from 1874 until 1891. The 19-room house is built in the Victorian Gothic style but the exterior and interior are different than any mansion we have seen – sort of an eclectic blend of different styles. While living in this house, Twain wrote many of his most notable books: The Gilded Age, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, Life on the Mississippi, Huckleberry Finn, A Tramp Abroad, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Twain’s next door neighbor in Hartford was Harriet Beecher Stowe of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” fame.
The next day we took the tour of the Connecticut State House along with a large group of fourth graders. Sometimes we like to do self-guided tours of the capitols but some capitols like this one only allow you in to the Senate and House chambers if you are on a guided tour. For the most part, the kids were well behaved so it wasn’t too bad.
After driving by the Old State House in Hartford, we drove to Newport Rhode Island to see the International Tennis Hall of Fame which is housed in the old private casino/club. This was the smallest of the pro sports halls of fame we have seen and was easy to go through the exhibits. I especially liked the grass and clay tennis courts on the grounds.
Newport is also well known for its mansions – summer “cottages” of the rich and famous. We decided to tour the grandest mansion there called the Breakers, a 70-room Italian Renaissance-style palazzo inspired by the 16th century palaces of Genoa and Turin. It was built in 1893 by another grandson of Cornelius, Cornelius Vanderbilt II. They provide a good self-guided audio tour of this mansion where Gloria Vanderbilt and her son Anderson Cooper spent some time.
The very rich of the Gilded Age sure knew how to spend on needless decoration of their homes - using only the finest imported marble and woods would do. While these excesses seem exorbitant today, it was a perfectly accepted practice by the very wealthy back then. In fact, another nearby mansion called the Marble House was built by Cornelius Vanderbilt II’s brother William and they seemed to compete to see who could spend the most money on their mansions. While we did drive by several other prominent Newport mansions, the Breakers was the final “house tour” on this trip.
In Providence, Rhode Island, we got a private tour of the State Capitol and then drove on to Springfield, Massachusetts where we visited the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The exhibits were good and they have several interactive things to try – rebounds, dunking, “palming” the ball and shooting in to the various different baskets used over the years. I was hoping they would have a separate exhibit on each team including our Sacramento Kings like the Baseball Hall of Fame but I guess until the Kings win a championship, they won’t get their own exhibit.
We had some time left in the day so we saw the Springfield Armory National Historic Site in Springfield. This armory started making rifles in 1794 by order of President George Washington and continued making and storing firearms until 1968 when the U.S. Government decided to rely on private manufacturers to supply its armed forces. Two exhibits really stuck out to me. One was the Organ of Muskets which inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to write his anti-war poem, “The Arsenal at Springfield”. The other was the original lathe invented by Thomas Blanchard in 1819 which could mass produce identical rifle stocks.
On our way to Albany, New York, Kathy’s phone startled us with a warning sound. She read the text and it said: “Imminent Threat – Extreme! May 21 – Emergency Alerts: Tornado Warning in this area until 5:30 pm EDT. Take shelter now.” We figured out that the warning was for an area that we passed through back in Massachusetts so we kept driving. That night in Albany, there was a great thunder and lightning storm complete with a torrential deluge.
Our last day was spent in Albany where we got a great tour of the Capitol. New York’s Capitol is the 33rd state capitol I’ve toured and it is unlike any of the others. It looks like a large French Chateau on the outside and the interior is so ornate that when Theodore Roosevelt took office as governor, he put a stop to the outrageous spending and the capitol was never finished. Everywhere you look, there are hand carved sculptures, beautiful wood paneling, paintings and other artworks, not to mention the famous (or infamous) million dollar staircase.
After seeing the capitol, we went up to the observation deck of the 44-story Corning Tower for our final panoramic view of the trip. I also saw one more Art Deco building – the 34-story New York State Office Building. We then drove across the river to see the Rensselaer Train Station opened in 2002 replacing Albany’s Union Station which closed in 1968. Though more modern than many of the stations, we’ve seen, it was still impressive.
We had several hours before catching our flight home so we made a short drive north of Albany through Troy, New York to see Peebles Island and Gate #4 of the Erie Canal. We actually were hoping to find the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Visitor Center but we found out it was closed due to budget cuts.
From Peebles Island, we headed for the airport and about five minutes before we got to the rental car return, it started pouring so hard, I could barely see out the windshield. This was the hardest rain of the whole trip. Luckily, it only sprinkled a few times when we were walking around or having our picnic lunches.
We ended up driving 1,318 miles (2,121 km) on this trip. We saw three major pro sports Halls of Fame (we saw the Pro Football Hall of Fame on a previous trip), a Major League Baseball game, eight lighthouses, three state capitols, eight Frank Lloyd Wright-designed structures, a castle, five mansion tours, numerous Art Deco buildings, two Great Lakes, five National Park Sites, Niagara Falls, the Erie Canal, an historic concert site, a foreign country, and some great scenery all in nine and a half days! We always do and see a lot on our trips but after this trip, we really needed a rest when we got home!
Here's of 122 of almost 800 photos I took: Photos.
Here's a 2 minute High Defination clip of Niagara Falls: